An Algerian culture-enricher has been convicted in Paris for the notorious murder of an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor. He was sentenced to life, which means at least 22 years in France. Which is better than in Sweden, where a “life” sentence generally turns out to mean eighteen months or so.
Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this article from France24:
Anti-Semitism: The murderer of Mireille Knoll sentenced to life imprisonment
The criminal court of Paris sentenced Yacine Mihoub to life imprisonment for the murder of Mireille Knoll in 2018. The body of this woman, age 85, suffering from Parkinson’s disease, had been discovered stabbed and partially burned in her residence. The aggravating circumstance of the victim’s belonging to the Jewish community was recognized.
Yacine Mihoub was sentenced Wednesday, 10 November, by the criminal court of Paris to life imprisonment, at least 22 years to be served, for the 2018 murder of Mireille Knoll, with the aggravating circumstance that the victim belonged to the Jewish community.
His co-defendant, Alex Carrimbacus, was acquitted of the murder of the octogenarian but sentenced to a punishment of 15 years’ imprisonment, at least two thirds to be served, for robbing the victim. The anti-Semitic character of the crime was also applied for him, as well as the aggravating circumstance of Mrs. Knoll’s vulnerability, 85 years old and very weakened by Parkinson’s disease.
An “anti-Semitic halo”
The court concluded that the events had taken place within a “global anti-Semitic context”, according to the reading by court president Franck Zientara after more than nine hours of deliberation.
According to the court, “The villainous character was fed by a hatred due to the victim’s belonging to the Jewish religion” and by the prejudices of Yacine Mihoub and “beliefs that valuables could be concealed” in the social housing of Mireille Knoll.
“It’s just; it’s what we were expecting. Our family can begin mourning,” the grandson of Mireille Knoll said in reaction the verdict.
The arguments before the court concentrated on the question of the anti-Semitic character of the crime. Snippets of conversation on Jews and stereotypes about their supposed wealth, as well as internet searches, constituted the set of facts to determine the “anti-Semitic halo” in which, according to the attorney general and the civil parties, the crime was carried out.
Eleven knife wounds
On 23 March 2018, the fire department was called about a fire in an HLM [moderate rent housing] in east Paris. On the second floor they found the partially burned body of Mireille Knoll, laid across her hospital bed, her legs dangling. Her frail corpse had suffered eleven knife wounds.
The attorney general had requested life imprisonment with at least eighteen years to be served.
The death of Mireille Knoll, who had fled Paris in 1942 to escape the Vel d’Hiv roundup, had aroused great emotion, especially since a year previously Sarah Halimi, a Jewish woman in her 60s, had been killed and thrown from her window by a man who was ultimately found not to be criminally responsible.
Three days after the death of Mireille Knoll, the Paris prosecutor opened a judicial investigation for “murder” of an anti-Semitic nature before the case was sent to the criminal court of Paris in July 2020 for voluntary homicide.